In its annual report, the New York-based organisation, Human Rights Watch, says the inability of the police and judiciary to control common crime by legal means led to serious setbacks in human rights in much of Latin America this year.

The report notes that police brutality is evident in Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Human Rights Watch says Colombia is awash with violence.

There were six-hundred political kilings in the first half of 1998, many of them carried out by right-wing paramilitary groups.

The report says the Colombian army often fails to make a sufficient distinction between civilians and combatants.

The Colombian government is currently in the preliminary stages of negotiating a settlement to its long running conflict with left wing rebel groups.